The Car Connection Expert Review

Before our
eagle-eyed readers start firing letters off to our editors, let us be clear that
we know the Enzo is the fastest and most powerful sports car ever to emerge from
the house that Enzo Ferrari built. That said, if you’re talking “reasonable”
price and “high” volume — all relative terms, of course — it would likely be
hard to beat the new F599 GTB Fiorano, the long-awaited replacement for the 575M
Maranello.

Review continues below

Hard as it might
imagine, the new sports coupe might actually qualify as a daily driver, as a
factory team set out to demonstrate by driving a pair of F599s all the way from
the far end of Brazil all the way to New York City, where they wrapped up the
Panamerica 20,000 earlier this month.

The sleek shape of
the new coupe sweeps from the low, aggressive nose across a bulging hoodline,
and back to its broad, rear fenders. The shape is visually intimidating, and was
heavily influenced by the aerodynamic demands of high-speed driving. The flying
buttresses help improve downforce, something quite useful when you’re
approaching a top speed of “over 205” mph.

Under the Fiorano’s
curvaceous hood, in a mid-front configuration, sits a 611-horsepower, 48-valve,
6.0-liter V-12 — a retuned version of the Enzo engine. That V-12 is, by itself,
awe-inspiring, but even more impressive is the six-speed electro-hydraulic
transmission it’s mated to. There are a growing number of these auto-shifted
manuals on the market, but no one seems to have gotten it quite as right as
Ferrari has with its Formula 1–inspired gearbox. The F1-Superfast can shift in
as little as 100 milliseconds — barely the blink of an eye. That’s significantly
faster than with previous Ferraris, and compares with shift times of 50
milliseconds in a Ferrari F1 racer.

The automaker’s
numbers suggest the F599 will outperform that other classic Ferrari supercar,
the F40, launching from 0-60 in about 3.5 seconds, “making it the fastest
production car we’ve built,” notes a Ferrari official. “I know that’s confusing,
but we consider the Enzo a ‘limited-production’ car.”

As you’d expect, the
Fiorano offers an extensive array of performance and creature comfort options,
ranging from customized exterior paint colors to F1-derived ceramic brakes.
Expect to shell out at least $260,000 — or more — for a well-equipped one. That
is, of course, when you can get your hands on one. The waiting line, according
to Ferrari officials, is running at least two years.